


I Have A Problem

by najio



Category: RWBY
Genre: Multi, Not a fic, just another step on my descent into madness and also probably a cry for help, the most try-hard shitpost of all time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28978806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/najio/pseuds/najio
Summary: So at roughly 6:30am, right when I was going to bed, my brain went hey! Let's make a giant network graph of all the shipping tags in this fandom, because it'll probably be hilarious! And that is what this is. I still have not slept.Basically this is a shipping chart on all of the steroids.
Relationships: literally all of them - Relationship
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

Okay, so this is... essentially a graph of how many Character A/Character B fics exist on AO3 for almost* every character. Specifically the slash, too, so these are all romantic pairings that exist on the internet and, y'know, fair warning that a couple of them will probably be a bit Cannot Unsee. So please don't shoot the messenger.

IMPORTANT: it's going to look like a potato on AO3. Right clicking a graph and hitting "Open in new tab" should bring up an image that will let you zoom in with better resolution. Mobile users, uh..... sorry but i have no idea how to make it work for you :I

How dark the colors on each character are depend on how many total fics they're in (i.e. Yang will be way darker than, say, Jacques.) It also changes how big the nodes are.

The thickness of the lines depends on how many fics are under that tag, and they're also labeled with the exact number. As like, 3.0 fics rather than 3 fics, but I can't be bothered to fix that so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

*Characters that didn't connect to anyone are not here. Also it's super possible that I straight-up forgot about someone, i have not slept in many many hours

Anyways, here's the master graph:

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Pq5kGu0hj7Q7BIw639WurjfNf-PyYyFSYW7RRSA8QzgrDqBFAaf0_JkDBtAVFJNQPgwdzRinHNQ1SgTMyT0b_vxbsSSxVU9LEGgxQA3-4CniKE1D-0QlbtKPSiDTP0VOvykWyXXe=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

Pretty and all, but very hard to read. Mostly because almost everyone is connected to almost everyone else. So here's a graph that only includes ships that have at least 10 fics in them and is (slightly) less cluttered:

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ouj_33JqVMKlI9R9yLIxOwk11gDGLzjrwdQZKI0e7THSRdBpOpVKHsqSOAder9AIwQwjQj2_EvXBvahaa7W47prQNjHoq7Y0GMMpjZ9PYVmTNH6e9quA38KzNpCIRIaqfGiSbQe4=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

And here's a 50+ fics graph:

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MDf0fN7Kez6gfiP-oyGB3Pr9MI0FSTdRn_wnuhhDN9n3W0DhVvYKWVWI6_QBmg475DKZCyVkvUWrwRnxnEGpIxcnIO8Yog28S3NITj8F7L9CrMFEuloCeO1IEuiaZHjnG65_vGxY=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

And a 100+ fics graph if you like 'em really sparse:

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_ip-6dcV6yGXy-_BTtDNlsT-Jmtz69OvBFnEQBoXkd1sBrOyO9wqfDyMYTjO8ISroCRBAzqOyKpW_wOf1oqvk1kac5V6HC-NLm65bgrs18nRZQGe4d3RFjmkUHZ1cDWH8N8q6aD8=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

If anyone cares about methodology: I went through the "search tags" function on AO3, which lists how many fics are tagged with each pairing. Then I fed that to some Java code that weeded out all the like, random crossover parings and the 8 million characters named "Jinn" who are not relic of knowledge Jinn. And also the ones that were listed but had 0 fics. And then it converted that to the right formatting for a program called Gephi to use (i highly recommend, it's a free program that lets you make giant conspiracy corkboard graphs and you do not need to be this insane to do cool things with it).

There was also the slight hiccup of WOW this is a bad format for dealing with poly ships, so I just stuck with monogamous ones for this. I might try to come up with a way to have the poly ones add to each of the like, component ships? but i'm tired. In a similar vein, the & relationships are not included in this right now. If you want a version of the graph that's like, just that or that added to the / ones, lemme know! but it is definitely not happening until i sleep.

Speaking of which, if you want to see something weird or specific (like, idk, a graph that only shows nodes connected to a particular character, or one that's only showing rarepairs with less than 50 fics) feel free to let me know! I still have the graph and there's a lot I can do to mess with it without much extra effort. No promises, but I've enjoyed playing with this so who knows

EDIT: WAIT FUCK I THINK IT COUNTED EVERYTHING TWICE

EDIT 2: All good I fixed it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back with part 2, poly/plutonic boogaloo! And before you ask, no. I still have not slept.

Here's a chart where it's adding up all the parts of poly ships to make edges (luckily it turns out Gephi does this automatically, which i found out when i accidentally doubled literally all of my numbers the first time around. Whoops) I should also note that this is probably going to inflate certain counts a bit over their actual representation—like all the pollination tags are counting towards enabler even though not all of them contain any

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ib5kQyHG7NkWiPwCTilPma6uh8DOVXIx5jz9ykPE0YMRG5OZ-6pGYSsLLeXfdBtjdXLDksVOj0qGRRkPOV_wwu_YjH7M3dXMFQAUNW-YCwXloCoyC8x7rircdTRlnD73PJjxkyIjbg=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

Here's the poly chart pared down to 50+ fics per edge so it's a lil' more legible

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ol0QXy13BlBc6xZWqc3pLY2tKerXFac6iC7WBtoQURElvz8S3Gy0G4Vb-n39Xm6iUYhdKZjb72DRdVf-s_bRAythpE9xrxcV0jQUjbFgjC4uLQ5oxgnrXv2HT3_5UJi8jYeqsl78sQ=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

Here's the plutonic & chart of doom. It works basically the same as the poly chart except that it's only counting ships with the & symbol

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8p-GZnecj0YNTWRHQU-Rg2uyiO5gHhuLO3Ljf8hHC96fSHetI8PVJOFZxtNv-gWdAKJx_uHIj_9-3uh2Bts7pn8czQTJIzZyLHOA2lCnUMMewO5jfpkOou1x62usdz4jsY8Oa4Zpg=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)

Aaand the plutonic chart pared down for easier reading

[ ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nbnetYwtLrcX1jHVsnsfoA6qUV0QMC3Z38U6fC7G_0xc6VyuPoXXb2J5O4VuBi8KomFU_rFnh_WEqg0xgsHj-SC3-OTe47kv_xfRCm46Vu_ke8zRtMWz6UZrFxO8EwYbpzZqbh85dg=w2400?source=screenshot.guru)


End file.
